Earth Mat Design for Metro

Station

Subhendu Bikash Santra

SE/RVNL/KOLKATA
contents

 Introduction.

 Standards.

 Design Procedure.

 Example.
Introduction

 Earthing means connecting one conducting wire from

neutral point to ground [System Grounding] or from
equipment body to ground [ Equipment grounding].

 Earthing system is necessary to ensure safety of

equipment and personnel, continuity, protection and
reliability of overall system.

 Separate Earth or Clean Earth.

 Earth Mat.
Standard

 IS 3043:1989.

 IEEE 80:2000.
Purpose of Earth-MAT

 Provides easy and shortest path to flow the earth fault

current without adversely affecting the continuity of
service.

 Safe touch and step voltage for personnel nearby the

station area.

 Protection of costly devices from unbalanced voltage

during fault.
Design Procedure of Earth
Mat
 Determination of maximum L-G fault current and L-L-G
fault current at LT side. Take the larger one as fault
current for MAT design.

 Determine the grid current by using current split factor.

 Buried conductor size selection .

 Select Design according to the space availability.

Design Procedure of Earth
Mat
 Symmetrical [1:1 to 1:3 Mesh size]-IEEE Imperial
Formulae 80:2000 std.

 Non-Symmetrical- Finite Element Analysis using ETAP

software.

 For symmetrical-Minimum spacing between parallel

conductor is 2.5 m. and max-22.2m

 Perfect soil resistivity data is required for calculating

allowable step and touch voltage.
Design Procedure of Earth
Mat
 A high soil resistivity of crust layer is required where soil
resistivity is very high and fault current is large.

 Where soil resistivity is low there is no need of giving

high resistivity crust layer.

 Crust layer resistivity directly increases the allowable

touch and step potential without actually reducing
calculated touch and step voltage.

 Two layer soil model is required where soil resistivity is

non-uniform.
Design Procedure of Earth
Mat
 Increase in horizontal conductor length actually
reduces touch potential.
 Increase in no of down rod reduces step potential.

 Increase in no of mesh in mat reduces the touch

potential but beyond certain limit the MAT is said to be
saturated.

 So, we have to effectively use conductor and down-

rod to minimize the step and touch potential within
MAT zone and beyond of at least 2m from edge.

 IEEE 80: 2000 is particularly important for symmetrical

MAT design where space is not a problem.
Symmetrical Mat
Unsymmetrical MAT
Example : JOKA Station

 Space Availability : Non-Uniform

 Soil Resistivity: Non-Uniform. (7.60 ohm-m[6M] and

12.88 ohm-m (beyond 6M).

 Fault Current: 7.5 KA (max)

 Split Factor: 75%

 Crust layer treatment : Nothing is required as soil

resistivity is less and also fault current.
Example : JOKA Station

 Method : Finite Element Analysis Method.

 Analysis: ETAP software.

Proposed Drawing at JOKA
 Simulation Result
Software
Window:
 Simulation Result
MAT Model
Corelated
with space
availability
 Simulation Result
Result
Summery
Showing no
warning
 Simulation Result
Step
Potential
Profile.
 Simulation Result
Touch
Potential
Profile.
 Simulation Result
Grid
Potential
Rise
Simulation Result

 Allowable Step: 231.8 V ; Calculated Step: 41.6 V

 Allowable Touch: 224.5 V ; Calculated Touch: 103 V

 Resistance : 0.09 Ohm (less than 1 ohm)

 GPR: 510.8 V which is considerably low for a remote

ended person. (transferred potential)

Thus the MAT design is safe and Acceptable.

Thank You